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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Before & After: Silhouettes

I'm participating in Pixel Perfect's Before & Aftermeme again. I had so much fun last week I decided to try it again. There are some amazing photoshop wizards out there.

This tutorial is from Alison at Home is Where the Heart Is. When I was just starting my Project 365 last year she was very inspirational. She is a mother of 6 children and is a super talented lady.

I did silouettes of both my kiddos and I like Little Man's slightly better.

1. Photograph your subject, in profile, with a digital camera. Your camera should be on the same level as your subject. Try to shoot against a pure white background: this makes it easier to digitally remove the background later on. Hang a white sheet and used some lights behind. (The beauty of it is that it doesn't have to be perfect. I didn't have a big enough sheet and had crappy lighting. And now I'm exposing my flawed photos for the world to see.)

(I whitened the background to make it easier. Not a required step.)

2. Open your photo in Photoshop. With the Magic Wand tool, select the (preferably white) background for removal. Once clicked, the background will be outlined and highlighted, go to 'edit,' and select 'cut.' The background will disappear.

3. Go to 'image,' and select 'adjustments.' Select 'desaturate:' this removes all color. Also in 'adjustments,' select 'brightness/contrast.' Both lower the brightness, and increase the contrast: your image will take on the form of a silhouette. If your picture hasn't fully silhouetted, fill in the rest of the figure with black, or another color, using the Paintbucket tool.

4. Use the brush tool to shape the shoulder area. Use the magic wand tool to select the silhouette.

5. Then cut and copy it into new canvas and add some text!

If you have them done professionally they are quite pricey. You can see her final work here and here. They are stunning!

WOW great tutorial, Lish! Will have to give it a try *if I can get my little monkey to stand/sit still long enough to take his picture* I love PhotoShop and can't live without them hahaha. Thanks for sharing this!

I absolutely LOVE this! And I checked out Alison's and her's are great too! I so want to do this! I must get Photoshop! LOVE This! Love it! Ok that was a lot of love and exclamation marks but I really love this! :P

This is fantastic!! I really need to learn how to use my photoshop better - I get so overwhelmed with everything there is to know. I also need to put your blog on my favorites list... I always love visiting!!

I like this! I've seen silhouettes in various places and think they look really effective. I'm not a great photographer and don't have photoshop (yet!) but I'm learning. This is something I'd love to try eventually.

Great tutorial Lish! You're awesome at these. :)Hope your first day of summer break goes well with the kids tomorrow. I'll be praying that the brother-sister fights are kept to a minimum. lol Have a great night.